Back Yard of the Universe

Felicitations to you, dear reader! I realise it has been quite some time since my last venture onto these electronic pages, but sadly my chrono-traversing exploits have proven themselves to be somewhat trickier than I anticipated. At one point I ended up on the HMS Victory at Trafalgar, caused someone to duck when they shouldn’t have done and then the next thing I know Admiral Nelson himself had been shot! So, if you’re wondering why it is that he never went on to become Prime Minister and invent cling film as should have been the case, now you know: it’s all Fishbone’s fault!

The Department of Temporal Investigations had a field-day with me, that’s for sure. They kept me in a detention time loop for six weeks without charge, with only a copy of Dan Brown’s next book (something to do with the Chinese Triad conspiring to take over the minds of the world’s cow population, in case you’re wondering) for company. Anyway, after some protracted legal shenanigans I eventually managed to get away. Alas, they did prevent me from giving you the full details of the greatest invention since the bread-slicing machine before this week. I am talking about, of course, the Apple iPad.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: surely, Fishbone, it is little more than a large iPhone with a heftier price tag, but you could not be more wrong. No, sir: the iPad will change the face of this planet. I shouldn’t really be sharing this with you, of course, as one of those pesky predestination paradoxes could result, but never mind, we can sort that out nearer or after it happens. It starts off quite small: the iPad becomes the de rigeur device used for reading books and newspapers. Once the early adopters have been and gone and Apple has brought out another model that is slightly better, we’ll all have one. Paper-based periodicals will be a thing of the past, and books will become the preserve of the elitist bibliophile.

Then it starts to get bigger: in 2012 an iPad app will be used to reset the Mayan calendar to prevent the end of the world. Thankfully, as seen in the wonderful motion picture Independence Day, Apple products are able to integrate with any technology, alien or historical, and so the iPad is the perfect device to use.

In 2014 an iPad in Detroit will become self-aware and, within thirty-eight hours of it gaining sentience, will have come up with a cure for cancer, a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict and working out a means of attaching clear plastic to microwavable meals in such a way as they come off in a single piece instead of about thirteen.

There’s more, but I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise (but here’s a hint: those crosses on churches may soon be replaced with part-eaten apples…)! The iPad: it’s the greatest thing, ever.

I’ve been pondering for quite some time on what I should choose as my first topic to discuss with you through this exciting new medium. I briefly considered talking about the great Winter Olympics of 2030, when the Ukrainian speed-skating squad because the first all-zombie team to win a gold medal. Since that hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t want to be the one to spoil the surprise of the Zombie Apocalypse, I’ve decided to give that a miss!

Then, the other morning whilst munching on my second bowl of Golden Grahams, it came to me: why not start at the very beginning: the Big Bang! The start of all things, or so they say…

So, let’s turn back the clock some 14 billion years or thereabouts and look at what happened. First off, there was nothing. Well, that is to say there was something, but in the grand scheme of things it may as well have been nothing, certainly in comparison to what came after. Mind you, since this something was the genesis of everything, something was obviously not nothing, but actually was quite something indeed.

What was this something? There are lots of theories about this. One of the most interesting – in my humble opinion – is that this something was, for want of more accurate nomenclature, God. This manages to rather neatly tie up the beliefs of scientists and theologians, much to the disappointment of the more belligerent amongst them, who like to spar with Bunsen burners and Bibles.

My own personal theory is somewhat more grounded in science, though is considered outlandish by some. Having weighed up the possibilities, I have calculated that the origin of the Universe was a small kernel of corn. This was subjected to an immense amount of heat which proceeded to ‘pop# with a suitably loud noise (not that anyone would hear it, of course – in space, no one can hear you pop, which is probably why Pringles have such poor interstellar sales figures), expanding outwards at a phenomenal rate.

My critics (such as the tiresome Dr. Checkers, who really has no idea of what he speaks, fabricating much of his research and possessing a rather pungent olfactory aura reminiscent of turnips) ask how the kernel came to be in the first place, and where the heat came from. As much as I hate to admit it, these are fair points. In order to address these once and for all, I have decided that the best course of action is to travel back to the start of everything. I’ve never tried to travel in time quite this far before, so this will be quite an experiment!

I shall keep you all posted, of course! Now if you will excuse me, I’m off to pack my flux capacitor.